There are numerous different security technologies on the market today to limit access to digital information and for physical security on doors or gates. One common method of limiting access to specific areas in a building includes iris recognition systems. These are the systems that scan a person's eyes to determine their identity and allow them access to restricted areas.

Since the early days of iris recognition technology, users and developers have assumed that the iris doesn't change over time. If the iris doesn't change over time that means a person can be enrolled once and the system should recognize them indefinitely. However, recent studies have shown that the iris of a person's eye can in fact change over time leading to the possibility of false negatives and false positives.

"The biometric community has long accepted that there is no 'template aging effect' for iris recognition, meaning that once you are enrolled in an iris recognition system, your chances of experiencing a false non-match error remain constant over time," stated Kevin Bowyer, Notre Dame's Schubmel-Prein Family Chair in Computer Science and Engineering.

"This was sometimes expressed as 'a single enrollment for life.' Our experimental results show that, in fact, the false non-match rate increases over time, which means that the single enrollment for life idea is wrong."

Bowyer worked with Sam Fenker, an undergraduate from Notre Dame, to analyze a very large data set containing iris images acquired over a longer period of time. The researchers were able to analyze iris images year to year for three successive years to determine if changes occurred. The research found that the iris could in fact change over time requiring reenrollment.

Bowyer added, "I do not see this as a major problem for security systems going forward… In the long run, researchers may develop new approaches that are 'aging-resistant.' The iris template aging effect will only be a problem for those who for some reason refuse to believe that it exists."

Certainly the change delta will vary between individuals and most certainly those with a degenerative and/or disease condition.This offers a huge opportunity in ophthalmology to track and study eye change perhaps offering an early warning system for some eye diseases.

As for this security problem, the stored profile can be changed each time a person tests for entry. If the test scan is defined to be of poor quality (by some metric) then the test scan would not replace the stored identifier and either trigger a fail or report to admin that the scanner is out of adjustment.In either case, a history of scans can be kept on each member and certainly of each fail. This tracking could provide a learning module within the testing system to adjust to progressive alterations.

In addition, it is possible that this technology can be used to screen for substance abuse and either trigger a urine test request by the HR dept or termination having detected a progressive disease that the HMO would flag as a high risk factor.Yes, abuses are a very possible result.

If a company doesn't want drug users in their employ then that's their right. If you go to work for a company that has a strict no-drug-use policy, and you decide to do so anyways, then you deserve to be let go.

quote: or termination having detected a progressive disease that the HMO would flag as a high risk factor. Yes, abuses are a very possible result.

This is the part of the sentence that you seemed to have ignored. Detecting drug use through covert means is another issue I had not intended to address but as long as you've raised that point I am willing to combine both as abuse of power.